Cold
by temporaryinsanity91
Summary: Kim goes skiing with a new friend. Ron goes snowboarding with a long-time love he never had the courage to approach before. T for language.
1. Prologue

**just a short story i thought of. it's unbeta-ed so i apologize for any mistakes. i've been ironing this one out for a couple weeks so i hope yall enjoy it.**

* * *

**Prologue**

"Thank you, Dr. Possible."

I smile and shake hands with my patients, seeing them out of my office and sit back down at my desk, smiling, rather involuntarily, at the family portrait on my desk. My sons' mischievous smiles exactly match their father's. Kimmie's red hair is overshadowed by her radiant smile. Her green eyes are just like her Nana Possible's eyes.

"Dr. Possible? You have a call on line 2. It's the Park Ranger."

Park Ranger? I hurriedly pick up the phone. Why would a park ranger call me? They handle the wilderness, the forests, and the... mountains. Oh God, Kimmie! "Dr. Possible speaking."

"Dr. Possible, we've been unable to reach your husband for some time. We're calling about your daughter, Kim, she is here at Middleton Ski and Resort for the weekend with her classmates."

I try to control my breathing, and I can barely hear over the blood rushing in my ears.

"We're sorry to inform you, but the resort has been evacuated because of an avalanche. It seems that your daughter and one other classmate were on the mountain when the avalanche occurred. Search and rescue-"

The phone slips from my hand.

* * *

It's so cold. She isn't moving anymore. Her breath comes in sighs of pain, and her eyes are closed. There's a tiny wrinkle between her perfect eyebrows that is slowly smoothing out as she fades away. I can't feel my fingers or my feet anymore. A brief look at them says that they are dark blue from the cold.

It's so cold. The darkness is getting deeper and deeper. I can't see her very well anymore. The rise and fall of her chest was barely visible anyway. I uselessly check my phone with shivering, numb fingers to see if it works. It's been dead for hours. Not that it matters, there's not really any service out here. I knew that but I did it anyway. I needed to at least pretend to not be useless... I hate the cold.

It's so cold. Her body is icy. Her lips are blue. I move closer to her and lay down beside her. I don't know if I can save her. But I love her, and I'll die trying to protect her... from the cold.


	2. Chapter 1

"Who wants to do the black diamond trail with me?" grinned an excited redhead.

"You're such a show off, Kim." Bonnie Rockwaller rolled her eyes and turned away.

"I'm not a show off." Kim Possible tied her flaming hair in a knot at the base of her neck and sighed. "Come on! Anyone?" the rest of the sophomore class of Middleton Academy for Gifted Children, or MAGIC, was too busy either drinking hot chocolate, or tubing or otherwise enjoying the less dangerous slopes.

"I'll go with you."

She turned toward the voice, excited, only to find the class jerk, Eric. They dated last year... that didn't end well. Her smile fell off her face and her expressive green eyes hardened as she flipped him off. "Dream on, loser."

Eric rolled his eyes. "Possible, why are you like that with me?"

"Because you're a hurtful jerk manwhore who's brain needs more neurons and less ego. Excuse me, asshole," she seethed, shoving past him and inside.

"Kim, wait!" he hurried after her.

"Go away, Eric."

"Kim can we please just talk?"

"I hate you, leave me alone."

"God, you're stubborn as hell!"

"Don't get me started, Eric," she growled. "I have no qualms about humiliating you here."

"Kim, you're seriously still pissed about that? That was last year!"

"Yeah and you haven't changed a bit!" she cried, causing silence to fall in the lodge. "You're still an arrogant douchebag that uses pretty girls for sex! I _wont_ be used by you, Eric! Quit pining over me! It's over! You are never going to _tap _this, and it's your own fault for fucking some skank in the school parking lot while you were _in love_ with me! Go screw with someone else's head, okay?" She turned to the stunned audience. "Ladies, now that I have your attention, listen up! If you've dated, kissed, slept with, or had any romantic contact with Eric Fletcher, you might have a sexually transmitted disease! Get yourselves tested immediately!"

Some girls looked rather frightened (including Bonnie, who's face was priceless) and some other girls laughed at Eric. Most of the guys just 'ooooohhhhed' at him

Eric's mouth gaped. "K-Kim, I-"

"Save it for someone who cares!" She said to him with a glower before stomping away.

"Girl, that boy wishes he never got caught-"

"Don't mention it, Moni," Kim cut off the part African-American, part French girl named Monique. They became best friends when they met at Club Banana. They both wanted a shirt, but it was the last one in stock. Later on they started hanging out every day and Monique got into MAGIC. Kim learned that her new friend had designed for famous red carpet designers by age ten, and guided her through some rough times in order to get in. The girls always went shopping together and Monique generously designed dresses for winter fling and every other dance since sixth grade. They became fast friends.

"Sorry, Kim."

"He's such a jerk! I wonder why I never saw it before."

"It don't matter now, I s'pose. Did ya find anybody to go with ya?"

"No," the flame-haired girl answered glumly. "I guess I'll go by myself."

"Fuck nah, gf. You goin with somebody else or you ain't goin at all. You seen the horror stories."

"I've done worse trails with two or three guys chasing me... or ten..."

"Yeah, don't even get me started on those missions that you do, girl. Have you ever thought about getting someone to go with you?"

"No one would be able to keep up with me," she snarked, glaring around the room. "Nobody even wants to."

They eventually reached a table where the rest of Kim's friends were: Bonnie, who's only exceptional talents in Kim's opinion were being a bitch and maxing out a credit card; Tara, the surprisingly dim-witted blonde with exceptional physical ability; Marcella, the Latina with an attitude and a secret obsession with cyber-robotics; Paige, the raven-haired girl that never spoke but knew seven different languages by age nine; Zita, the Latina girl with short, razor-cut hair that knew everything ever about computer programming and gaming... she and Wade constantly battling each other over who was the better hacker; and Lilith, the gothic girl with one of the most exceptional talents for drawing, painting, and sculpting Kim had ever seen. All of these girls had helped her on one mission or another before, and most of them respected and admired Kim. All except Lilith were cheerleaders. Marcella, Bonnie, and Tara had some idiotic obsession with appearances and the 'food chain' and probably only hung out with Kim because all of Middleton hailed her as a hero.

Kim, aside from an exceptional physical agility that had her already as Cheer Captain for the MAGIC Alchemy (even though she was only a sophomore), Kim was a superb investigator. She also had a 177 IQ. She used her unique (and maybe not as cool) talents to aid local and federal law enforcements everywhere in anything from criminal apprehension to search and rescue and disaster relief operations around the world. After saving the Mayor's daughter from some extremist party and heading up rescue operations after a tornado hit, saving countless lives with her agility, efficiency, and ability to lead, all of Middleton literally bowed and kissed her feet... at least, that's how Bonnie's little posse perceived it.

The girls got to talking about fashion, makeup, and other things that girls talk about. All the while, Kim was still searching out someone to do a difficult trail with her, if only once. She loved Moni and Lilith to death but dear God, those girls could not ski or snow board to save their lives, so she spent most of the day tubing and drinking hot chocolate with them and Zita and Paige. Bonnie and company stayed the majority of the day in the hot tub and tanning rooms. Typical.

She tuned back in the conversation as Lilith rolled her pale blue eyes which were lined with dark black makeup. Her lips, painted deep red today rather than the normal black, were set in a sneer. "You guys are fucking boring."

"And you need therapy," countered Bonnie. "God knows what you do to yourself when nobody's looking... although I'm sure the God-awful makeup is a good indication. Seriously, those creepy people are always, like, cutting themselves and stuff."

"I'm gothic, not emo, Bonnie. If you're going to be a self-absorbed discriminating bitch, at least get your facts straight. Emo people self-mutilate." She stood. "Who's up for tubing?"

Kim raised an eyebrow and Bonnie huffed and stomped away, muttering about tanning. Her posse followed her.

Paige stood too. "They're all going to get wrinkly and cancerous from all the tanning they've done this week."

"I know right?" Lilith rolled her eyes again. "Let's just do this."

Kim looked around again. "No one is up to any real skiing," she sighed petulantly.

"You mean no one wants any broken limbs at the end of this week, Possible. It's easier to keep up with the Kardashians. Are you coming or not?"

Kim sighed before following along. Hopefully over the next three days, _someone_ would go up to the top of the mountain with her.

* * *

The next morning, Kim put on her gear and snuck out of her room before the rest of the girls woke up. It was about seven in the morning and the sun was barely beginning to lighten the sky.

She went down to the breakfast bar and filled her huge thermos of with hot coffee and started toward the mountain. The cold air felt good on her face.

"Hey! Hey, wait up!"

_Who could they be talking to?_ She wondered, not recognizing the voice. She realized it belonged to a boy about her age with messy blonde hair and snowboarding gear that was running towards her. "Hey," he huffed, putting his hands on his knees when he reached her so that he could catch his breath.

"Hi," she said, trying to hide her amusement at the puffing stranger.

"You... where are you... where... are … you going?"

"I'm skiing," she laughed. "You?"

He straightened and grinned. "Wherever you go. Lead on, o Fearless Leader... Leaderess? Or Leaderette? In Hebrew and Spanish, feminine forms end in 'ah' most of the time, so maybe Leaderah?"

She laughed again. "Kim is just fine."

"Oh I know your name," he smirked. "Who in Middleton doesn't know Kim Possible when they see her? You're like a celebrity."

`She shrugged, looking away to hide her mild embarrassment. "It's, uh... it's no big."

They started up the mountain together, armed with their gear, snacks, and very large thermoses of coffee.

"So... what's your name?"

"Less famous, but equally awesome, Ron Stoppable at your service."

She giggled. "Pleased to meet you."

"So besides skiing and saving the world with your badical skills, what else do you do?"

She grinned. "It's a long list, are you ready?"

"Why is it so long?"

"Well when you're in the saving the world business you tend to do a lot of things that you wouldn't normally do. I've done everything from modeling to fly a space craft."

His jaw dropped. "Thats, uh... a bit intimidating. How about the more normal stuff?"

"I know sixteen different styles of kung fu. I play soccer, basketball, softball, lacrosse, volleyball, tennis... you name it I've done it. I do gymnastics, obviously, and wind surfing, snowboarding, swimming, water skiing, skateboarding and in-line skating. Ice skating, rock climbing... and I've dabbled in some driving stunts or racing and such... but I don't like doing that unless I have to."

"You're really hard core."

"As if," she dismissed his comment with a wave and a smile. "I still get upset when my nails chip."

He laughed. "Do you ever have time for yourself with all that stuff?"

She smiled at him, leaving him slightly dazzled. "I have plenty of time for myself. I just fill it doing things that I love."

He regarded her in silence for a long moment. "I've never heard it put that way before. I like that."

They helped each other up the steep slopes of the mountain, leaving most of civilization behind. Ron paused after a few hours. "Wait. Is this even an official trail for this resort?"

She grinned, looking a bit like a red-haired Cheshire cat. "No. but I've skied and snowboarded all over this mountain. I owed them a favor... who do you think swung the location for the vacation? And who do you think scouts the trails?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You?"

She curtseyed. "In the flesh. Are you coming or not? We're almost there."

"If you say so."

"You're surprisingly relaxed about this," she said with amusement. "If I were to spring this on Moni or Lilith, they'd rip my head off."

"I've done snowboarding for some time... I think I can pull this off. If I cant, well then you have to escape so you can tell them where to find my body. Holy shit, we're jumping off of _this_?" His eyes widened comically at the drop before him.

She shrugged. "It's just like jumping off a lift. Maybe a bit higher up though. You'll be fine. Are you coming or not?"

"Alright, alright. How long does it take to get back down?"

"Up here it's actually really steep. This will take about half-hour maybe? Just keep your knees bent and enjoy the speed, 'kay? And don't fall."

"Gee, thanks."

She chuckled gleefully. "The rest of the ride levels out a bit, and that will take a while longer."

"What a work out," Ron grimaced.

"It'll fly by. I promise."

Ron took a calming breath and then made his way to the edge of the rock where they were standing. He strapped into his snowboard. Then he lept into the emptiness infront of him. Kim followed.

* * *

The ride down was great. She was right about enjoying the speed, it was exhilarating. Then the mountain had leveled out like she said it would, and they rode along in enjoyable silence until Kim's cell phone started to ring. At least, Ron _thought_ it was a cell phone. It actually was some sort of video-chatting device.

"Wade! Hey, what's sitchin' today?"

"Kim where the hell have you been?"

"On the slopes. Why?"

"Because everyone in the resort is looking for you and someone else from your class. They think you're lost." he glared. "By slopes, you mean the ones _marked_ by the resort?"

She flushed and gave the boy in the video-chat a sheepish grin. "Tell them we're fine, and we're on our way."

"I'm pissed at you, Kim. You need to let me know when you're sneaking off like that. I don't appreciate being woken up by GJ demanding to know where Carmen San Diego is."

"Carmen San Diego is a villain, and she's not half as cool as I am."

"You know what I mean. Get down there!"

She shut the device off with a groan. "My parents are going to kill me. I wasn't supposed to be doing this on this trip. I mean, I told my mom, but she was pissed. If she finds out I didn't-"

"What is that thing?"

"Oh, it's just my Kimmunicator. K-I-M-Municator. Wade named it after me. It's got full video chatting capability and a host of other things. Infrared scanning... stuff I need on the, uh, job."

"Job? So they pay you?"

"It's not really a job... I mean yes I get paid...sometimes. it's more like freelance."

"You freelance for Global Justice." The statement was more like a question.

"No, I volunteer for whoever needs my help. If they wanna pay me, I don't usually say no. I do have a shopping habit to maintain," she ended ruefully.

"So when do you say no?"

"Disaster relief and search and rescue." She smirks. "Bad guys usually come with a reward, so I normally donate half and keep half of whatever the reward is. The most I've gotten paid in any crime-foiling job is ten thousand dollars. It would have been fifty, but the town suffered some pretty major damage and I ended up giving away most of it and spending the other ten grand on some other things the people needed." She smiled sadly, slowing to a stop and leaning on a tree. "A little girl lost her family in that sitch. She was badly injured and there was no one to pay for her health care. I pulled some strings, and now she's a ward of our state, instead of her own country. Little kids there end up in..._sub par..._ orphanages, and I didn't want her to end up in a place like that. I put the ten grand down towards her stay in the hospital and another five grand to the family that took her in. The rest I donated to the people that were doing the reconstructions and supplying the food and water and stuff. I ended up with six hundred bucks for my flight home."

"You're very generous." His voice was quiet and full of awe. "I don't know anyone in the world, myself included, that would give away hard earned money like that."

"She reminded me of someone I love very much." She stared at her hands for a moment before turning and continuing down the mountain with a whoosh.

Ron stared after her in bewilderment for a moment before following. "Hey, wait up!"

She was still quiet when he caught up to her. He realized that she had cried at least a little and her cheeks were red from the sting of the tears drying on her skin in the cold.

"Are you okay?"

She stopped again, turning to him with a self-depreciating chuckle. "I just met you, and I'm telling you all this stuff."

He shrugged. It was just fine by him. It was the first time since the day he first saw her that he actually got close enough to talk to her. He would hear anything she had to say.

She wrung her hands. "I had a little cousin... her name was Jailyn. She uh... she died of Leukemia when I was in eighth grade. She was three. I used to babysit her all the time. She was really beautiful." she drew a shaky breath, and Ron reached out to brush her tear from her cheek. She smiled. "Thank you," she whispered. "The girl, I met her because one of the guys I was fighting, his lab exploded and it caused a landslide. It wiped out a town and the hospital where she was... she had cancer." Tears filled her green eyes. "She passed away last year, too. From the cancer. I uh... I used some reward money from my current case, at that time, I mean, to fund the funeral myself."

"I'm very sorry for your loss. Both of them."

She smiled sadly again. "There are things that even I can't prevent. There are people I won't be able to save. That kind of grief is part of my life now. Come on, they are waiting for us."

Just then, a God-almighty roar startled Ron and he looked behind him.

Kim grabbed his arm. "We can't outrun it, we can't out-ski or board it. Ditch the board, or it'll shred your legs." He hurried and did as he was told. They ran as fast as they could, jumping off a ledge just in time to avoid the wall of snow that was chasing them.

* * *

Ron opened his eyes and looked around for her. "Kim?" he croaked. The whimper he heard in response had him fully alert. "Kim, where are you? How bad are you hurt?"

"Unh," came the anguished moan. He couldn't see anything except white. Everywhere he looked there was whiteness and coldness. He focused and tried to look around. He seemed to have made it to the ground and as close to the eight-foot ledge as he could before the avalanche hit. Kim was bringing up the rear... she might not have been so lucky.

He had to find her. Crawling along the narrow tunnel that the snow formed, barely the size of those sky-tubes in JP Bearymore's Pizza Party-torium, he made his way toward where he thought the sound had come from.

"Kim!" he yelled again, more desperately. "Kim please talk to me"

"Ron," her voice answered, pain ringing in it. "I'm... I'm hurt bad."

"How bad, Kim?"

"Left leg... arm... I think I crashed into... maybe a tree?"

"Keep talking, sweetheart, I'm coming to find you."

"Hurts to talk."

He spotted her just then. She was laying on her back, her legs buried under the massive wall of snow.

He tried to pull her out of it but she screamed in pain. "I'm sorry," she whimpered. "My hip, I think my hip is broken."

"Well I can't just leave you half buried," he snapped back, his tone somewhere between exasperation and panic.

Her jaw set, and her green eyes hardened. "Fine, pull me out. I can deal."

"But you..."

"I like my legs, Stoppable!" she spit through gritted teeth. "Pull me out, I can handle it."

He pulled for almost ten minutes. Their bodies were sweaty from the exertion and Kim's lip was raw from her biting it. When he finally got her out, he put her as close to the stone ledge as possible. She let out a shaky breath of relief.

Gently, he checked her. Her left leg was in bad condition. It was fractured in several places besides her hip. Her left arm was equally destroyed and her shoulder was dislocated. He got his back pack and pulled out a dry hoodie. "I'm going to take off your coat and stuff since they are wet. Do you have like under-armor or something?"

She nodded, gritting her teeth. "Okay I'm going to leave you with this and your under-armor okay?"

The process of taking her clothes off was not only painful for her, but uncomfortable for him. He marveled at how tiny and fit her body was, and then he remembered that he was supposed to be helping her, not checking her out. It got awkward quickly...

A small part of him admired how toned she was from all her... _exercise_. The rest of him worried that there wasn't an ounce of fat anywhere on her hundred-ten-pound body to keep her warm. There was no way she would survive if hypothermia set in and help didn't come. Her body was so delicate, so small.

He'd seen the books and the movies. They had to stay dry and they had to stay awake... no matter what. Good thing that neither he nor Kim had started on their enormous thermoses of coffee. He poured her some and brought it to her lips and she gratefully savored the warm fluid.

"Kim? You've got to stay awake, okay?"

She nodded. She knew this too. "Talk to me," she implored. "I've told you about me already. What do you do in your free time?"

"Mostly read... play video games. The usual." He brought the fluid to her lips again and she sipped it before speaking.

"You're supposed to talk," she chuckled. The action was painful for her.

"I um... my life isn't as interesting as yours."

"I don't think so. Your life might be just as interesting... just less action."

"I suppose that's true... unless _Bricks of Fury_ counts as action."

She scoffed. "No way. Those movies are lame."

"Lame? They are the epitome of action and entertainment!"

She laughed, then winced. Her chest was radiating pain, and she knew she had at least one broken rib. "You're such a guy." She smiled up at him. "Any siblings?"

He smiled brightly. "A sister. My parents were on vacation this summer... they visited an orphanage in Japan. They adopted a little girl. Her name is Hana. She's... the best sibling anyone could ask for."

"That's really sweet."

"Yeah. That's why... I mean what you were talking about earlier... it made me really sad. I can't imagine losing our little Hana that way."

She stared at her hands. "Like I said. I can't save everyone from everything. It was a lesson I had to learn the very hard way."

He brightened. "She's so sweet. She's still a baby, only six months old. And she's got the cutest cheeks." He smiled as he reminisced about his baby sister.

"I have two brothers. They are twins, their names are Jim and Tim."

He raised an eyebrow. "_The_ Jim and Tim? The ones that blew up the chem lab to bail their friend out of detention?"

She laughed for a long time. "They blow up everything! Ugh just yesterday they got grounded because they stole my alarm clock and parts from my dad's lab to make a rocket... which failed miserably and crashed into my neighbor's house. Then I was late to school _and_ I had a test _and _they stuck me with clean up duty!"

"Sounds like your brothers keep you and your family on your toes huh?"

"You have no idea," she chuckled.

Minutes became hours. Ron did his best to huddle close to her without hurting her, that way they could both stay warm. But they started shivering, and soon nothing they did could keep them warm.

Kim looked up at him with an unreadable expression. "We're... we might not make it out of this."

He gulped. He tucked her hair behind her ear with trembling hands. "They'll come for you, I know it."

She reached up with her good arm, squeezing his hand. "I'm not so sure."

"Stop," he begged, his throat constricting. "We can make it through this, okay? Just keep talking."

She gave him a watery smile. "Okay."


	3. Chapter 2

"Tell me about your friends."

She raised an eyebrow. "You didn't see them all?"

"Everyone at that table yesterday wasn't your friend."

"You're very observant." She smirked. "My best friend Moni. I'll start with her."

"Which one is Moni?"

"The dark-skinned girl with the curly hair."

Ron nodded. "She's in your cheer squad?"

"Yeah. She actually designed and made all our uniforms herself."

"Cool!"

"Her mom was a designer in Paris. Her dad is from Middleton."

"Was?"

Kim nodded. "No... she didn't like, die or anything. She um... she left Moni and her dad when Moni was very young."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Moni has always had it in her head that she would design her own clothes... partly to spite her mom I think. But mostly to remember her."

Ron didn't know what to say to that.

"Moni has designed for some of the most famous designers out there. She's been sketching her own line of clothing for years. She has a spring line she drew last year... for me. It was called 'Anything is Possible' by Moni Jay." She smiled. "She actually made the whole collection... it took her three months. I still wear it, actually. The dress I wore to the Spring Fling last year was from that line too."

"So wait, now designers name their lines after you too?"

Kim laughed. "Nah, Moni just... she used to get into trouble a lot. I have... had... a lot of juice with the law. Her charges were dropped most of the time. I talked to her dad about an... _acquaintance_... that I have that is a therapist. That's how Moni got into MAGIC, because the therapist said that she was bored and that she needed to be challenged more. She started using clothing design as a method of relaxation... she loves it now. She's made more money off any one of her designs than my parents make in a year together."

"What do your parents do?"

"My dad is a scientist down at the Middleton Space Center. He deals with the designing and engineering of the space ships they send."

"That is really cool!"

"Yeah, well my dad is a bit of a nerd, what can I say."

"How about your mom?"

He saw her eyes sadden with her smile. "She's a doctor. She specializes in neurology."

"Your mom is a brain surgeon?"

"Yeah."

"No wonder everyone in your house is a freaking genius," Ron muttered.

Kim had to laugh again. "I tell them that every time the Tweebs destroy something." Her eyes watered, but her jaw set stubbornly.

"You'll see them again," he told her quietly.

She tried to smile up at him. It ended up more like a grimace.

Ron cleared his throat. "So Moni actually designed clothes for you?"

"Yeah. I wear them too. Last week I wore this green blouse she made me. Everyone was all, 'where'd you get that shirt, it's so cool!' and I had to laugh at them. Moni designed my mission clothes too. I've worn that to school a couple times... not enough time to change before class."

Ron remembered that green blouse all too well. He'd been drooling over her in it the rest of the day, and his buddy Josh had to snap him out of his funk several times. He knew her mission clothes too: cargo pants that hung enticingly on her hips, in a dark green that looked almost black, and a skin-tight obsidian black shirt that ended just under her rib cage, showing all the soft, tan skin of her abdomen and the soft curve of her waist.

That day she'd run into class, skidding to a halt and frantically pushing her hair out of her way just as the bell rang. She'd run into him and he reached out and put his hand on her waist, just to steady her. She whispered a hurried thanks and pulled her books out of her bag. Her hair had fallen over her shoulder and into her face again, and he marveled at how the black of her shirt made her hair look extra fiery.

He drooled over that for weeks. So did the rest of the male population of the Middleton Academy for Gifted Children.

Kim took it in stride, handling the attention with the same grace she handled everything else in the world. She never stopped blowing him away.

And he would kiss Moni's feet for designing the stuff that made Kim look so freaking beautiful, when he got out of this frigid hell hole.

"What are you thinking?" she asked curiously.

He shook his head. "Nothing... I was just trying to remember the clothing you're talking about. I remember your mission outfit. In fact, I bet most guys in MAGIC remember that outfit."

She flushed. "Did I really look that bad?"

The chuckle that came from him rose from his lips in a frosty huff. "Bad? The entire male population of gifted male students in Middleton has posters of you in their bedrooms in that outfit."

She crinkled her nose. "Gross."

He shrugged. "It's the truth. Wait, you didn't notice?"

"Not really... I'm not into dating these days." Her eyes lowered, and he frowned. Before he could ask what was wrong, she continued to speak. "I got burned really bad, and I'm not really in a hurry to date." She lifted a shoulder in a dull shrug. "I guess I've liked a couple guys since then, but not enough to go out with them. That and I'm so busy these days with my missions..." She stared at her hands for a moment before giving an embarrassed chuckle. "I'm sorry... that was totally off topic."

"It's okay." He smiled and squeezed her hand reassuringly. He realized then that he actually hadn't let go of her hand. He liked holding it, actually.

She glanced down at their joined hands too, squeezing gently. "Paige is such a conundrum. She joined Cheer this year and she's really great at it... except that she rarely speaks at all. Which is weird considering she knows more languages than there are days in a month."

"Holy shit! Are you for real?"

Kim grinned. "She's cool. I have a feeling about her though... like she can do more than she says. Lilith too. She's an artist."

"Lilith?"

"The goth-ish girl. Well I don't know. She dresses goth, but she's much too perky to be really gothic. Well, her sarcasm more than makes up for it I guess." She pursed her lips. "She sees things in ways that no one else sees them. It makes me wonder exactly what her talent is."

"How do you mean?"

"Paige with the languages... and Lilith with the art... I think that those things are just the... symptom, or the outward expression of what their real talents are."

Ron shrugged. "I don't even know how I got into MAGIC."

"What do you mean?"

"I just... I sat down one day and I told myself that I was getting the hell out of the Middleton public school system. I was so tired of the people there picking on me."

"So you came to MAGIC?" Kim tried not to laugh.

"Yeah I know, right? Although as cliquish as it is in MAGIC, most people just leave me alone. I like it. Being invisible is a nice change of pace for me."

Kim watched him for a long time. "You aren't telling me everything."

He just shook his head. "I will... later on. This isn't some dying confessional. We're getting out of this mess. Anyway, keep telling me about your friends."

She sighed. "Where were we?"

"Paige and Lilith. I don't know which one Paige is."

"She's the one with the black hair. She's always wearing it in a bun."

"Lilith you said is the one that dresses goth, right?"

"Yeah. She's a lot less intimidating than she looks."

He grinned. "I'll have to see about that. Who else is close to you?"

"Wait... I'm doing all the talking here. What about your friends?"

He looked away. "I, um... I don't have many friends."

"You have to have at least one."

He smiled. "Yeah... there's Josh. He's cool. He goes to Middleton High though. Your Lilith would like him, he's really into art. He's... quiet like me."

"He knows the other stuff, doesn't he?"

Ron nodded. "You're good. He, uh... has the same issues. We tend to stick together. He keeps me sane."

"I'm glad there's someone to support you in whatever is going on."

He smiled at the sincerity of her words. "Thank you. That... means a lot coming from you."

She reached for his hand again, squeezing it gently.

* * *

"_Tonight on Middleton Evening News: Our very own town hero, Kim Possible, is reported to be trapped in the wall of snow that overtook this small resort town earlier today, damaging dozens of buildings and taking several lives. Search and rescue operations have been going on for about six hours now and four people have been rescued. Miss Possible, however, was reportedly on the mountain when the avalanche hit, along with another student._

_Although the teen is well trained in survival situations, officials feel that if they don't find a lead soon, the operation to rescue Miss Possible and her classmate will become a recovery-"_

Dr. Anne Possible turn the TV off and tossed the remote somewhere. Burying her face in her hands, she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. She'd gotten that phone call just after wrapping up a pre-operation consultation. Her brain kicked into overdrive and she barely understood the words that came through the receiver: _There was an accident._ An accident, her clouded mind had repeated, dazed._ Avalanche, Kim was on the mountain. _When she'd called last night, she complained that no one wanted to go with her on one of the more complicated skiing trails. This morning, she'd cheerfully reported that she snuck out of her room and was going to go scout a trail with a classmate she just met, that was really good at snowboarding. Ron something.

And now they were lost out there... in the cold. She shivered sub-consciously and looked out the window. White puffs of snow swirled in the growing darkness before floating to the ground. The local weather just before the report on Kim had read fifteen degrees. She couldn't imagine how cold it was up on that mountain...

"Anne?"

She looked up, her blue-green eyes pooled with sadness, at her husband. "James... a-are you... I mean, how are you holding up, honey?"

He sat down next to her on the couch, pulling her to him and rubbing her back gently. "Don't... do the awkward thing. Talk to me, Annie."

Unable to stop her tears any longer, Anne wrapped her arms around her husband. "I just... I'm so scared," she whispered. "I don't want to lose our baby girl."

James squeezed his wife close to him. He would never say this to her, but he knew that there were literally hundreds of square miles to search. The chances of finding her with more snow falling on top of any evidence they may have left... it was getting slimmer with every minute, with every inch of snow that coated the ground, with every degree that it would drop.

His daughter would not come home tonight.

He squeezed his own eyes shut as he listened to his wife cry. He stroked her hair, reveling in the scent of it. She used a strawberry-watermelon scented shampoo, and so she always smelled like summer, even in the cold.

Kim was just the opposite. She always smelled sweet and spicy, and she always smelled like coffee because she mainlined the substance like water. He remembered one of the many times Kim arrived home in time for breakfast and cheerfully strode past her parents toward the coffee maker before grabbing a bowl and some cereal.

"_You got in a little late there, Kimmie-cub." It was five in the morning when their flame-haired, emerald-eyed, mission-clad daughter slammed the back door with a yawn._

_She smiled at her parents, who returned her smile with only a glare and raised eyebrows. "I'm sorry... it really slows me down when I have to pull my 'chute as soon as we bail... I got stuck with Agent Du on this mission again." She glared into the fridge dully. "Seriously, for a person who's been a Global Justice agent for longer than I've been alive, the guy has serious free-falling issues. I can't stand him at all! He thinks he knows everything, but he ends up ruining everything I plan! The Director gave _me_ the job, I was the lead operative! If it weren't for me he would have gotten that man killed, and his ass would have been fucking fired like it should have been years ago!" _

"_Watch your tongue, Kimmie."_

"_Sorry, Momma," she grinned sheepishly._

"_Just where were you last night, anyway?"_

_She gave them a brilliant smile that made her emerald eyes sparkle. "Tokyo." She pushed the button on the TV and turned to get the milk. She poured some in her coffee and some in her cereal as the news anchor announced that some toy man had been saved by Middleton's own world-famous teen hero, Kim Possible._

_The glares turned to smiles and they relented, congratulating her._

"_It was no big," she responded with a grin. "Well... except the sumo-ninja. He was_ really _big." She shuddered at a memory but smiled again. "Besides rescuing the toymaker, I also got to have some fun at the parade. I brought you guys back something too... not from the parade, I mean from Japan. Not that the parade wasn't in Japan- Ugh, you know what I mean." She reached into her backpack and brought out a beautifully gift wrapped box._

_She finished her coffee and stretched, yawning. "I have a debriefing in an hour and then I'm headed to school." She muttered about having to wear her mission clothes all day, but then she kissed her parents cheeks before pouring her cereal in a plastic container to take with her._

_James and Anne opened the box to reveal a beautiful porcelain figurine of a woman in a traditional Japanese. In her hand was a beautifully decorated fan._

He picked up the figurine, which now decorated the side table. "Remember this?" He asked softly, causing his wife to stop crying, briefly.

She gave him a tearful smile. "Kimmie came home so embarrassed that day because she didn't get the chance to change out of her mission gear until her cheerleading practice." She stroked the figurine gently.

She had key chains, jewelry, and trinkets that Kim would bring home after all her adventures. During the summer last year, she'd been gone for six weeks out of the year. Two weeks she spent on a case for GJ, and the rest of the time she spent helping build dorms, a school, and a church with a Christian organization that ran an orphanage in Tanzania. She brought home dozens of pictures and trinkets, and she still received letters from the kids she got close to. The summer before last, she spent the month of her thirteenth birthday building a youth center and teaching sports to kids in Mexico that were at risk for gang violence.

She had to come home. The world still needed her. She was so fearless, so compassionate and caring, so full of life... and caffeine... and she couldn't leave like this! She was as fiery as her red hair, beautiful, smart, and she never held back. She was a fighter, a warrior, a cat with nine lives, a phoenix that rose from the ashes and disaster again and again... she could make it through this. She had faith that her daughter could live through this, like she did through everything else.

James watched his wife look at the beautiful porcelain doll, and his heart was breaking. He saw the hope rise in her eyes, and he knew that the next phone call they would receive would drain the life from her eyes forever. He didn't know how to stop it... part of him didn't stop hoping either...

He did know one thing. "I love you, Annie."

The blue-green eyes that he'd fallen in love with twenty years before pooled with emotion. "I love you too, Jimmy."

* * *

Ron's frame trembled violently, but he chuckled anyway. He had her talking about her missions now, and she had gone off on a tangent about the annoying and incompetent agent she sometimes had to do her missions with.

More time had gone by... it was darker. Darker and colder. He guessed it was night time now. It took her so much effort to speak now, because she was constantly controlling her reactions to her pain, and trying to keep her trembling to a minimum. He almost wanted to tell her to save her energy, to rest... but if she saved her energy, she would die, at which point any energy she'd conserved would be completely useless.

She'd fallen asleep earlier, much to his utter fear and horror. After his initial panic, he realized that their tiny snow-tube would not hold forever, and it could collapse with them in it. So after hours of digging and crawling, he came across a small cave that was big enough for both of them to fit comfortably, but just barely. He'd carefully carried her, as best he could, to the tiny opening and dug through her backpack for anything useful to keep them warm. He found a flashlight and a half-full lighter. He scraped together what tiny twigs and leaves were in the small space and created a fire. She'd slept peacefully then. But now the fire had burned out, and they both watched it's last embers die in silence.

Ron had tried to keep her talking since then again, but he himself had been awake since four in the morning, tormented by the images that plagued his subconscious mind. He was starting to get sleepy, too. But he kept shaking himself awake, not daring to sleep too long. If he left her, she'd die terrified and alone, and he couldn't let that happen.

She'd offered him his hoodie back, and he vehemently declined. His clothes had mostly dried out with the fire, anyway. Now they were conversing about nothing and everything.

"Do you know he actually pretended to be my dad one time? Oh and he liked bossing me around, too. When that mission was over I told him to fuck off, and that my dad is a thousand times cooler than he'll ever be."

"You should respect your elders, missy," he chided her with a chuckle.

She rolled her eyes. "As if." After a moment, she smiled up at him "You're not so bad, Stoppable."

He coughed to cover his surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I dunno," she shrugged shyly. "I like you. You're cool... even though you're trying to be tough for me through this like I'm some damsel in distress."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Well you're a damsel... I mean, you aren't a dude, that's for sure. You're a lady, a damsel. A smoking hot one at that, if you don't mind me saying so. And if this situation doesn't qualify as distress, then I don't really know what does."

She glared into the darkness in response. Then she smirked. "You know, I don't mind."

He coughed to hide his surprise again.

She laughed, but then became serious. "You know... we're in this frigid little hell hole... I'm in pain, I'm tired, and cold... but I haven't laughed this much in ages. I haven't... sat down to _talk_ to my friends... to my classmates... and all of a sudden you come along... you're in my class but I don't even really know you... and then I'm having more fun with you here in this place than I do when I'm out with my girls or saving the world or..." she stopped, taking slow, shivering breaths. "I'm sorry I had to meet you like this." her voice wavered slightly, belying her tears.

"Keep talking," he urged gently. "Please, don't give up on me. We just met, it wouldn't be cool for our friendship to begin and end in the same day, would it?"

She shook her head, biting her lip to hide a smile. "Talk to me about you," she said.

"I've already told you everything about me."

"Not everything."

He sighed. "Since you insist." He took stared at the ashes left of the fire. "My parents... well they don't really like me...very much."

Her voice was flinty. "What does that mean?"

"It means that they've been mentally and emotionally abusive since as long as I can remember."

She was silent a long time. Her frame trembled... but not from the cold. From the _rage,_ the all-consuming anger that suddenly coursed through her. There was no way a guy as laid back as her new friend had those kinds of problems at home... it just wasn't possible! He was so... caring. And happy go lucky. Actually, just generally happy. How did he end up so... _normal?_

The laughter that echoed in the tiny space startled her. "Did you really just ask me why I'm so normal?"

She flushed. "Maybe-"

He grinned. "It's alright. I actually have an answer for you." Growing serious, he took her good hand again. "First, I don't want you to feel bad for me. I know you've got your hero complex thing going on in your head, and you're thinking that you wish you'd known and whatever else. First, emotional and mental abuse is actually pretty hard to prove. Second, I do a pretty good job of keeping that sort of stuff to myself. I spoke to the guidance counselor, in middle school. Apparently, picking on me at home makes it easy for people to pick on me elsewhere," he muttered dully before continuing. "Anyways, the counselor helped me understand a lot of things. She reported it to the social service people too, but like I said... that kind of thing is hard to prove. She told me that it wasn't about me, that I'm not everything they say I am... she helped me understand that it's really their own problem that makes them that way." He drew a shaky breath. "When they brought Hana home I was secretly mortified that anyone even let them have another kid, let alone adopt. It took a week for her novelty to wear off, and then they were treating her like me. At that point I sort of took over all the responsibilities of taking care of her myself. I figured if they don't have to deal with her, they won't treat her badly, right?"

Kim's jaw was clenched so tight she was pretty sure her teeth were cracking.

"Kim? What are you thinking?"

"That I want to get out of here so that I can give your dear folks a piece of my mind concerning you and your sister," she spit through her teeth. "And that if I ever find out that there's so much a hair missing off that baby's head there will be hell to pay, and I'll make sure they pay it."

"Kim-"

"I can't believe-"

"KIM!" Ron chuckled. "Calm down, sweetheart. We have to get out of here and fix your up before you can go on your crime-fighting rampage of doom."

"And God help whoever gets in my way," she added with a huff. Then she gave him a sly, almost evil grin. "You know, if you're really into it, I have more strings I can pull than a clothing factory."

He shook his head. "Nah. Not quite yet. Maybe in a couple years. I'm fine, the problem is Hana."

"Oh, you want to wait till you're eighteen and make the case about Han with you as a witness that establishes a pattern. Then they'd go to jail, and you could sue for custody of Hana. Hmm..." she looked thoughtful. "I bet I have strings for that too." The devious smirk was back. "Actually even if you turn eighteen first, you can technically still press charges for yourself. I'll look into that. And you know, if you bring a kid in from out of the country just to abuse them I bet there is a way we can spin it where it's considered human trafficking, which makes it a federal case. Leave it with me."

Ron shook his head. "I created a monster."

"Not a monster," she pouted. Then she reconsidered, with a devious smirk. "Well, maybe I am a monster, to some people. But that's okay, they are monsters to me, too." She was silent a moment, then she glared at him. "Wait, hold it. Did you just call me _sweetheart_?"

"And if I did?"

"I hate it when people do that! I'm not a sweetheart, sweethearts don't know how to kill a person ten different ways with their bare hands. And I don't want to have to prove that, so don't call me it again!"

"Yikes," he muttered. Then he grinned. "Sorry, sweetie. I won't do it again."

She glared at him and he held his hands up in surrender, laughing.

"So we've already established that my parents suck. Lets talk about something else."

"Just for calling me _that_, you have to tell me the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you."

"Oh... boy, that is a very long list."

"Okay, well what's at the top?"

"The top, or the top one-hundred?"

"That bad?"

"Well, most embarrassing things happen to me on account of bullies. The things that don't are really just my own clumsiness. Like the time I fell up the stairs every day for two weeks straight. Tripped on the same stair every day! It took me a while to figure out that that step was slightly wider than the ones before it, and that I would step expecting to have to reach further out and end up stubbing my toe and landing on my ass three stairs up."

She chuckled. "That is not clumsiness, my friend. That is talent. I've never met anyone who could consistently trip on the same thing over and over."

"I guess that's how I got into MAGIC. It takes skill to trip over flat surfaces. Oh, heh, I'm actually wearing that tee shirt today."

She grinned. "Mine says 'CSI: Can't Stand Idiots' today. I wore it two months ago when Agent Du and I had our debriefing. The director was laughing her ass off the entire time. He was clueless and self-absorbed as usual. It was... pretty hilarious."

He shook his head. His _sweetheart_ definitely had a very sour side when provoked.

They had a lot in common, he discovered. Besides their apparent love for snarky tee shirts, they were also certified coffee-holics and they both loved the slopes, obviously. During their long and random conversations he also found out that Kim had a secret love for plush, and that her guilty pleasure splurges usually involved Cuddlebuddies. She'd flushed and stuttered for a few minutes over it before he finally laughed.

"You don't have to defend yourself, you know," he grinned. "If you have an absurd attachment to collectible plush items that's your problem... I'm not one to judge."

"Gee, thanks," she retorted.

"I'm serious. Besides... I might have a secret thing for the Flippies."

She giggled. It was the single most adorable sound he'd ever heard. "Are you for real?"

"I'm so for real. The Flippies are legit."

She giggled again. "Legit, huh?"

"Hey you know what? I'm not judging on the Cuddlebuddies, so don't harsh my Flip."

She covered her mouth to stifle her giggles. "Okay," she chuckled.

He watched her for a minute. "You're cuter in person."

She smiled shyly, letting her hair fall in her face. He reached over and tucked her hair behind her ear. "We're gunna make it," he said, looking into her eyes.

For the first time, she gave him a genuine smile in return. "We're gunna make it."

* * *

**the falling up the stairs thing... it's possible, trust me. ;)**


	4. Chapter 3

"So how often do you normally go on missions?"

She smiled tiredly. "Depends... on the type of mission."

"Oh?"

She was silent. Her eyes had remained closed most of the night, and he found himself in a panic several times when she didn't respond to him right away. Needless to say, they both sighed in relief when the snow outside their little hole grew lighter and lighter with the sun. but he was terrified to see her weakening. He knew that holding on was becoming much too difficult for the girl that could do anything.

"Kim?"

She squeezed his hand.

"Keep talking, sweetheart."

"So tired," she whispered. "Too tired."

He stifled his trembling long enough to wrap her in his arms. She didn't react outwardly, but she stiffened briefly. "Did I hurt you?"

"I'm alright."

"I know you're tired and in pain," he said into your hair. "But I need you to keep talking. They are coming, and we are going to get you out of here."

She shook her head slowly. "I don't want to talk. I want to listen to you."

He smiled. "Okay."

"So," she drawled, a small smirk playing at her lips. "Any girls?"

He was quiet for a long time. "One."

"Is she cute?"

"She's beautiful," he whispered in response. "I saw her for the first time at a school dance. I remember thinking she was the most graceful person I had ever seen. I still think that."

She gave a soft smile. "Sounds like... you've liked her a long time."

"I've been in love with her since sixth grade," he said matter-of-factly.

She opened her eyes to look up at him. "Really?"

"Yeah," he breathed. "And I've always thought that... that I'd never have a chance with her. What with my family problems and my... my own lack of confidence I guess... I never took a chance."

"Wait, you've wanted this girl that long and you never talked to her?"

He shook his head.

She closed her eyes and leaned into him. "When we get out of here you'll talk to her."

"I did... before all this. I finally got up the courage to talk to her. She was just like I always thought she would be. Kind, graceful, full of life. She's smart, witty and fun. A-after meeting her, I love her... more." His voice shook.

"What does she look like?"

Ron swallowed hard. Drawing a deep breath, he reached up, brushing her tangled hair away from her face. "Her hair is... like fire." he pressed his lips to her cheek. "Her skin is like ivory."

Her eyes popped open. "W-what..."

He chuckled. "I saw her eyes for the first time yesterday. They were green, like emeralds in the sun. I never got close enough to her... long enough to see her eyes I mean... before yesterday."

She pulled away from him, ignoring the pain in her left side. Her eyes looked up at him questioningly. "You... you're kidding, right?"

He swallowed hard again, shaking his head. His heart was suddenly racing, and he tried not to stiffen as he braced himself for the oncoming rejection.

She covered her mouth with her good hand and stared vacantly into the small space. Her breath left her lungs in a whoosh. Then, tears filled her eyes. "I didn't even know your name," she whispered. "God, I've always known everyone's name! I'm the Student Council Vice President. How did I not..."

"Kim...? What are you talking about?"

She settled her surprised and mildly horrified sight on him. "I didn't even know who you were until yesterday! I only knew that you came on this trip with our class and..."

"It's not your fault."

"I've always known everyone."

"I've always been good at being invisible."

"You aren't invisible anymore," she whispered, giving him a watery smile. "Not to me."

He didn't speak, and she realized it was because he was holding back tears. She removed his hand from her hair and placed it over her chest briefly before holding it in her lap. She let out a self-depreciating chuckle. "You know, my reputation is as much a help as it is a hindrance sometimes. Before I never really cared about what people thought about me... I do what I do because I love it. I've never lost sight of that, but I could never shake the eyes of people on me. It made me conscious of every thing I do, every place I go... who I hang out with...my image has become more and more relevant to me, to the point where I haven't told Bonnie and her little friends off, because they actually know a thing or two about maintaining their image.

I never loved Eric. Not really..."

"Wait- Eric is the guy that burned you?"

She nodded. "I liked that he was popular. He comes from a respectable family, his dad and my mom are colleagues... if I dated him no one would talk down. I liked that he was cute, and that he treated me... well, in my blindness I thought that he treated me well. Paige warned me about him... but I was so focused on the fact that he is so cute and... good for my image." She shook her head. "I've been so blind. In the fourteen months I spent with him I never once felt what I've felt here with you in only one day." She sniffed. "As it turns out, he was honing his image too... and by that I mean, his image as a womanizing douche that likes carving notches on his bedpost. I was simply next on his list... and he'd buy me things and take me places, and kiss me and call me beautiful... and I thought that was enough. I didn't want to see that he was just playing with my head and wanted to be the only guy that nailed every cheerleader in the school. He missed me and Monique. He was so pissed at me when I told him off."

"I remember you ran home in tears one day... I had no clue why. But you were so upset..." he stared at his hands, slightly embarrassed. "I might have followed you home, made sure that you got there okay."

She raised an eyebrow. "No comment."

He chuckled. "Hey, you were upset. I just wanted to be-"

"No comment. Just... no comment."

He laughed. "Okay."

She laughed with him for a moment, then grew serious. "He said he was going to get me a ride home. I went to his brother's car. His brother wasn't there. He was, though. In the back of the car... with Bonnie."

"Wait... you caught them screwing in his brother's car?"

"Yeah. And I still let her hang around, can you believe that? Since when is my image more important than my own dignity?" She shook her head again.

"She knows you saw her?"

"No. Eric does, because I broke up with him after making him chase me around for a week begging to know what had me so pissed." She bit back her smirk. "I might have told him to meet me behind the gym... alone... to talk. And I might have left him with the impression that we were going back there to... you know." She couldn't hide her smirk this time. "He was so surprised when I popped him the first time. And I may or may not have cup-checked him. That was when he knew what was going on. And then I drop-kicked him and told him that if he valued his life, he shouldn't have a girlfriend that can kill a person with her bare hands ten ways and then cheat on her." She bit her lip. "It took him a few hours to get home. He told his parents that he got mugged. In the mean time a guy who feels like he needs to follow a federal agent home because she's upset and he loves her, not considering that he could have gotten seriously hurt if she'd caught him... is madly in love with me and I don't even know his _name_?"

He laughed. "I won't get on your bad side, I promise. I do value my life." He smiled. "You're image was never more important than your dignity. You deserve better than him, and than fucking Bonnie."

She chuckled. "I'll tell her you said that."

"Go ahead," he grinned. "This is the new Ron. The new Ron is not invisible. He simply doesn't give a shit. I've been in here in the fucking cold much too long to care what people think about me anymore."

Kim shivered and winced in pain. "Agreed. When we get out of here, we're done letting people trample our dignity." She gave him a meaningful look. "You're going to let me deal with your parents. If you ever want to stand up for yourself at school, you're going to have to stand up for yourself at home."

His hand squeezed hers again. "Do you really think that I can-"

"We can and we will."

He smiled down at her, and his voice trembled along with the rest of his frame. "Thank you. I... I love you."

* * *

"Can I get you something to drink, Dr. Possible?"

James let out a shaky breath and looked up at the young girl. "Um, I'm sure my wife could use some coffee."

"Moni is with her. Her dad too."

He smiled in thanks at her. Her class had returned late last night, and high school girls had invaded his home. Well, three high school girls. The one he was looking at, he was pretty sure, was named Paige. Paige and her family were new to the area, having moved to Middleton only last year. He was good friends with her father and mother, and her mother was a colleague of Anne's down at the hospital. The two girls had become close, and he found comfort in Paige's calm, quiet presence. She was a lot like his daughter. Mature, levelheaded, calm. Beautiful too, although he thought his Kimmie-cub was much more so. She had dark hair that was constantly in a bun, although today she had left it hanging naturally to her shoulders in loose curls. It was different for her... she looked younger.

"Kim says the same."

Had he said that out loud?

Paige chuckled. "What's Kim told you about me?"

"That you speak several languages, that you're in her cheer squad... I don't know, most of this I've heard from your folks, too." He wondered briefly about them.

"The told me to crash here with you guys tonight. They want to come by later, but I didn't know how you would feel about company." She shrugged. "Anyway, I do speak several languages. More than she knows, actually, she thinks I speak seven or eight. I can fluently speak and read twenty-one languages." He gaped at her and she grinned. "Languages are simply my favorite pastime. Communication is different for me."

"How so?"

She stood and gave him a devious smirk. "You didn't say that out loud. I'll get you something to eat."

He just stared after her. Things were about to get interesting.

* * *

Lilith was sitting alone on Kim's bed, observing her surroundings quietly. There was a desk in the corner. Her homework and Macbook littered the desk. There was a glass case full of nothing but stuffed animals. She stood up and crossed the room towards it. Opening it, she pulled out one of them. She'd gotten it for Kim's birthday in eighth grade.

They grew up hating each other all though elementary school. Kim, who she freely admitted was the bigger person, got tired of seeing her sit alone in the third grade, and persistently brought her friends along to sit at her table for lunch. For years they never spoke except when Lilith offered her some sarcastic insult. Kim always ignored her put-downs until the sixth grade, when she made a comment about her outfit.

Kim had smiled angelically. "I'm glad you like my outfit, Lilith," she'd said cheerfully. The next day, she wore black jeans and a black graphic shirt that had long, fishnet sleeves, along with a black choker and dark, dangerous looking makeup. Her hair was loose and the tips of her hair had been dyed jet black. She sat down at the lunch table that day and chatted with her friends as usual. Lilith didn't say anything about her clothes. She was still sarcastic with Kim, but now she'd just flip her off with a smirk or a laugh. In seventh grade, Lilith's dad suffered a stroke, and, unbeknownst to Kim, Dr. Anne Possible was in charge of the case. Lilith and her mother leaned heavily on the Possible family, and they willingly took them in, helping them with everything they could during her dad's recovery. There were many a sleepless nights in this room as she and Kim giggled and whispered about everything they could think of.

Lilith sat down on the large periwinkle blue beanbag couch. It was new. Before there was a pink one, and she'd cried on Kim's shoulder on that pink bean bag a whole lot the first few days her father was in the hospital. There was a lot about Kim she didn't understand. How was it that a fiery girl like her came home to a room with pastel pink and blue and purple? How was it that a girl that knew more ways to injure someone than should be legal had a secret obsession with plush toys like the one she was hugging now? How was it that someone who constantly saw disaster, destruction, selfish scum, and doom could constantly be so full of life, happiness, and grace? She'd grown to love Kim like a sister, but that did not mean that she didn't think Kim Possible was a fucking enigma to end all enigmas.

Today the rescue people had announced that they weren't doing rescue searches anymore... now it was a _recovery mission_. She'd seen Dr. Possible's face go pale and helped her sit somewhere comfortable. In her mind she knew. That mountain had been eight degrees. There was no way they could have survived twenty six hours buried in snow in eight-degree weather. Kim and the guy, who's name she found out was Ron... they were dead. Lilith knew this family would be lucky to have a body for the memorial service. That didn't mean that hearing the words spoken out loud was... painful, so painful.

The person who made her see life differently... who made helped her learn how to let people in... she was _gone_. The bed she was sitting in, the one where they'd giggled and cried and gossiped like children... it was going to be empty forever. God, what did Kim do to deserve this?

From the beanbag couch, she continued studying her friend's room. There was another desk area in the corner of her room near her closet. That area looked almost like another room completely. The pale thistle color on the walls gave way to white. A navy area rug sectioned off the area, and navy blue cork boards were on both walls. The computer there was a lot more secure than her Mac book. Only she could use it, and her identity was confirmed with a fingerprint scan and a super-unhackable password. The cork boards held photos of crime scenes, suspects, and maps of areas, along with sometimes reports that she needed to read constantly and other things. Kim took them down when her friends were over, citing that they didn't really need to see all that stuff, and that some of it was classified, and whatever else.

She'd seen her receive cases there before. The girly teenager disappeared instantly the second her stupid video-chat thing sounded off. Her eyes always became guarded, her shoulders always squared, and she always straightened to her full height. Kim the friendly neighborhood Cheer Captain, SC VP, and Cuddlebuddy collector became Kim Possible, the efficient and dangerous federal agent. She'd go to that computer, scanning her index finger in and listening as Wade or Dr. Director would outline the newest case. Within ten minutes she would be briefed, dressed, and packing her gear to go. Printing off her files and shutting down her special computer, she'd sprint down the stairs with a hurried apology for bailing on their hang out time.

The last time Lilith had seen her receive an assignment, she'd been gone for a week and a half. She left Thursday night, her eyes hard and her face set. She didn't even apologize for bailing that time. Her parents got the call Friday evening that She lost contact with Global Justice and that they were working to locate her. By the next weekend she was still missing and her parents were falling apart. The town press followed them everywhere they went and the school was more like a prison because they had to lock down everything to keep the paparazzi away. Kim arrived the following Tuesday early in the morning, bruised, nursing a cut on her arm, and utterly exhausted. Her expression was bleak, and everyone assumed that it was mission NOT accomplished. She never told anyone what had happened when she was gone, but she stopped attending sleep overs for a while. Paige had said she was having trouble sleeping, but she refused to say anything more.

She'd asked Paige if she could find them, but Paige said she had tried, but to no avail.

And if there was a chance that Paige could find them, it was gone. It was gone because Kim was gone.

She buried her face in the stuffed toy and cried.

* * *

"Kim?"

"Mm?"

"How are ya holding up?"

She smiled tiredly, her eyes closed. "Just keep holding me."

"Okay, sweetheart."

"How about you?"

"I'm... cold," he chuckled.

"I'm not."

"You aren't?"

"Just tired."

He pulled away from her and studied her. Her lips were blue. There was a tiny crease between her eyebrows, probably still from pain.

Her eyes opened and looked tiredly at him. "Why'd you let me go?" she whispered.

"I'm worried about you. You aren't even trying to hurt me because I called you sweetheart."

Her chuckle sounded more like a sigh. "No... I think you can call me... sweetheart. But nobody else! Okay?"

He smiled. "Okay."

"I'm so tired," she said.

"Hang on just a little longer, sweetheart," he begged through his chattering teeth.

She closed her eyes again. "Okay."

He watched her rest and panic rose in his chest again. She was fading fast, and he was next. Although that last part was rather irrelevant... he would die when she did. He wasn't going to subject himself to a lifetime of torture thinking that he'd survived and the love of his life didn't. He could handle anything but that.

Unless he could find a way to keep her warm. There was nothing in her backpack, he'd already checked a million times. There was nothing in his pack either... he wondered if he could find anything else to burn that could keep them warm. He crawled all along that stone wall as far as he could go both ways and found three frozen leaves and a couple twigs.

He cried for the first time. They were going to die. _She_ was going to die.


	5. Chapter 4

"Kim?"

"Mm?"

"C-can I ask you something?"

She nodded slightly.

"Do you remember... a couple years ago... I don't know much about it, it was all over the news that you'd disappeared while working a case."

"That was last year," she whispered. Her hands trembled, and Ron didn't think it had to do with the cold... although both of their hands had turned blue ages ago.

"Will you tell me what happened?"

She drew a shaky breath. "I'm not supposed to talk about this, it's classified."

"Please... tell me. I won't tell anyone, I swear."

"The mission itself... the nature of it is classified. All I can tell you is that there was a very bad person, planning something... horrific."

"What, like a terrorist or something?"

She shook her head slightly. "If only. He was... a mad scientist. He called himself Dr. Drakken. He used to do research for GJ... but his projects began to get extremely warped, and Dr. Director cut him loose."

"Okay, what happened?"

"I took the case, and I had a team of agents with me. It was just a recon mission, to try and see what he was planning and find out how to stop it. When I found out what he was doing... the director gave me the green light to pull the plug." He noticed how long it was taking her to formulate her sentences. It bothered him a lot.

"What was he doing?"

She smirked. "Classified." Her face fell. "One of them... the agents... sold us out."

He frowned in confusion. "Sold you out?"

She nodded. "Her name... is Sherridan Gould. She's one of the most brilliant agents I've ever met. She's a few years older than me, she's twenty-three. She, um..." Kim worked to control her voice. "I always admired her, and when I'm team leader and she's with me, I'm always asking her for suggestions. I learned a lot from her. But she... she was jealous of me. I didn't even know that until I woke up tied up in Drakken's lab. Three of my agents were dead and another one was seriously injured." Her eyes were closed, but she squeezed them shut anyway to block tears. "He died on the way to the hospital."

Ron swallowed hard.

"I... didn't know how he was hurt. Sherri... she was working with Dr. Drakken. He said that if she'd give him the down low on GJ, that he would... eliminate me."

"She wanted you killed?"

"She thought that I was... in her way." Kim lifted a shoulder. "She beat the ever-loving shit out of me. She was always a better fighter than I am, and I figured out quickly that in a one on one, she knew just how to catch me off guard. I was barely conscious when Dr. Drakken suggested the machine."

"Machine?"

"Yeah... it's this thing he invented that messes with the electrical impulses in your brain and your body... in a way that can create the illusion of extreme pain."

He swallowed hard. "Jesus."

"It was three days before they found us... I was there the whole time with that stupid... brain wave fucker-upper- shut up," she chuckled when he tried not to laugh at the _highly scientific_ name she gave the evil device. "Anyway, I spent some time in the GJ clinic but I left before I could be debriefed. I found out later that Dr. Drakken was killed in the raid. Sherri is paralyzed from the waist down. She took a bullet in the back." She drew another shaky breath. "I talked to her, and she said that she only wanted me to get the fuck out of her way. That everyone said that I was some kind of rising star in the agency, and that she wanted to be the best. She was up for maybe becoming the next Director, and she saw me as competition. I told her that she was someone I always looked up to, someone I learned a lot from... and that I'm sorry she felt that way... I was there when she was sentenced to life in prison. I still visit her, sometimes, although I think she hates me."

"You visit the girl who fucking tortured you for three days?" Ron had never heard anything more insane in his whole life.

She lifted a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "She's in a GJ prison. Occasionally I'm there to talk to some criminal about a case... and I see her. Sometimes I go on my own, because no one ever visits her."

"She's the reason four agents died, no one would want to visit her."

"Her family... they sort of abandoned her. For the reason you just said, I guess. She's become really bitter. I... bring her a piece of cake or a candy... or a book, or something... you know, to brighten her day."

"You are seriously..." Ron didn't even know what to say.

"Seriously what?"

"There is no one in the world like you, Miss Possible." And that was an understatement.

She just smiled. "We're friends, I think. Even though she hates me. It's weird."

"Yeah, no shit."

"She always starts off with some sort of sarcastic remark or insult. And I'll hand her her gift and she'll thank me with some other sarcastic nickname she has for me... 'Cupcake' or 'Princess' or something. And we'll talk for a while, and then she'll flip me off and go back to her cell."

"Some friendship."

"It's better than her being alone. She lost her career because of me."

"She lost her career because she was stupid and self-absorbed. That's not really your fault."

"To her, it is."

"Who gives a shit? She _killed_ four people! She was going to let you waste away on that stupid brain wave fucker-upper as you so eloquently put it. Who cares what she thinks?"

"It doesn't change the fact that she's alone now. And GJ prisons are the epitome of dreary and boring. I think that ten thousand brain cells die every time someone even walks through the door." She leaned her head back. "I'm sorry for her. And I like her, she keeps me on my toes."

"I'll bet," Ron muttered. His eyes slipped closed. He was tired, too.

* * *

Stare at each other in silence was all they'd been able to do since they found out. Sure annoying their sister and stealing her stuff for their newest project was... fun... until they got caught and she threatened to beat the ever-loving crap out of both of them... but now the house was shrouded in despair and darkness. All Mom ever did was cry or stare at her picture or stare at all the various trinkets she'd brought home from her missions.

She'd scored them this totally awesome design for a plasma laser once. Okay, that wasn't entirely true... She needed help with it for a mission, and they'd teamed up with Wade to study it. They might have made a copy when no one was looking, but they had yet to try and build it. Even Mom might snap out of her depression long enough to ground them.

Now Tim wondered if they could build it now to melt the snow on the mountain. Maybe, if they just melted the whole damn thing, they could find Kim. Hmm...

* * *

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

She was silent for a moment.

"Kim?"

"'m okay," she mumbled. "I just wondered..."

"Spit it out, KP," he chuckled.

"KP?" She echoed, smiling. "I like that. My... dad, when I was little he always called me Kimmie-cub. He still does, and I have to tell him to cut the baby bear references in public now."

He chuckled. "You aren't a bear... you're more like a... leopard or a jaguar. Stunning and beautiful and graceful and powerful... and really efficient when you're hunting."

She laughed out loud, wincing at the pain in her side. "That's um... wow. I've never heard myself described that way. Um... thank you, I guess."

He shrugged. "It was the best I could come up with on the spot."

She looked up at him with the intention of giving him her best smile, but found that his eyes, the color of honey and speckled with mahogany, were intense, burning with emotion she'd never seen or experienced in her life.

Cold lips met, and fire exploded in her such as she'd never felt before.

* * *

_My baby_, was the thought that circled through her head mournfully. _My baby is gone. _Tears blurred her vision as she sagged onto the couch for the thousandth time. She ran her hands through her short red hair and tried to calm down. This couldn't be real. It was some horrible, excruciating nightmare. She was going to wake up from this and set the coffee maker, and Kim would walk in at any moment and drain the whole pot like she always did.

"Honey?"

She looked up. "James..."

"I'm sorry, Annie," he whispered, sitting down next to her and wrapping his arms around her. His eyes burned. His family was falling apart, and he had no idea what to do.

His sons were depressed, and they'd all but quit their science experiments. The dinner table was silent, and everyone pushed around their food but never ate anything. Because of the giant elephant that was sitting in the seat that should have been Kim's. Except it wasn't an elephant... it was a monster. A snow monster that had eaten his daughter alive.

And then his imagination kicked in. He imagined her freezing, curled up in a ball somewhere trying to block out the cold, shaking and shivering until her body finally gave up. He imagined her injured, maybe, in pain and unable to help herself survive...

"James... honey stop," Anne spoke, watching her husband with keen eyes. "Stop doing that to yourself." She always seemed to know what her family was thinking... maybe it was a neurosurgeon thing. Or maybe it was a mom thing. Whatever.

"You think I don't think about those things too?" she whispered, trying to keep the tears out of her voice. "It kills me to think about her out there in the cold... how the last moments of her life might have been." She couldn't hold back a sob then.

He squeezed her tighter.

"I feel like this is all some awful dream."

"Me too."

"Mr. Jenkins has offered to help us with any memorial plans. Monique is distraught, the poor girl." Anne's heart ached a little more then. Kim had brought home the little trouble maker years ago, and she'd become a permanent fixture in the house along with Lilith, who was also a bit high on the weirdness scale, as Kim would have said. In the beginning Anne had been a bit leery of them, but by the time they hit high school, the two girls had matured, stopped getting into trouble. They had become beautiful, responsible girls thanks to her Kimmie. They had become like sisters, and they fought like sisters too. There was always some bickering, or some disagreement, or some anger when Kim took off... but they always made up. Kim trusted those girls with her life, and they in turn, became the most loyal, dependable friends anyone could ever ask for.

Now the girls were completely destroyed. The three were like... the friendship equivalent of soulmates. They had lost a part of themselves, the best part of themselves, to a horrid accident.

She really was the best part of them... it seemed like Kim Possible was the best part of everyone. The calls and condolences rolled in incessantly, and became clear very quickly that the girls were not the only ones that were deeply disturbed by her loss. The whole town was grieving. Maybe even all of Tri-city was moved by the tragedy.

She'd picked up the _Examiner_ this morning and the headline made her throw up. _Beloved Teen Hero Missing and Presumed Dead: Kim Possible Lost in Avalanche that Destroyed Small Resort Town Outside Mount Middleton._

Presumed Dead. She gagged again, and her husband sprinted after her, his own stomach in knots while she heaved.

They sat on the floor in the bathroom for hours, wrapped in each other's arms but lost in their own grief.

* * *

It was getting dark again. Her breathing was labored, and she knew her number was up. She didn't feel scared, or even angry, or anything. She just felt incredibly sad that she was leaving her new friend behind. Of all the people she couldn't save, _he_ would literally be the death of her.

He was watching her with a bleak expression. He knew he was dying too... and he was afraid to go before telling her that he loved her, at least one last time. He knew it was useless to panic, but the numbness that had settled in his body had rendered him next to immobile, and it was frightening not to be able to move because he'd officially frozen to death.

He tried to keep her talking, but her words had become slurred, and her thoughts were starting to become incoherent. Come to think of it, he was starting to feel a little bit crazy too. His mind was swirling with the cold and the darkness and the fear... and the grief that she was going to die. It was all he could think about.

"I'm tired," she breathed after what seemed like an endless silence.

His chest tightened, and he shuffled his way over to her until he could wrap his arms around her. "Rest," he said quietly.

A single tear fell. "I'm... sorry."

"Shh," he whispered, trying to keep his own emotion at bay. "It's okay. Just rest."

She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he pressed his numb lips into her hair. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. He was tired too.

"Ron?"

He opened his eyes.

"Thank you..." she mumbled. "I think... I think that I love..."

He waited a beat. "What was that, Kim?"

He was met with silence.

* * *

_Beloved Teen Hero Kim Possible Missing and Presumed Dead._

She read the words over and over, and she didn't believe them. The guard, seeing her visibly shaken, asked if she needed to visit the prison's clinic. She told him to leave her the fuck alone.

Her hands frantically turned to the page where the article continued, although part of her mind felt that, in her panic, she was almost looking for Kim in the folds of the flimsy paper.

She was the only friend Sherri Gould had ever had. It had everything to do with the fact that she was a closed off bitch that couldn't stand to be around people. She was not friend material. She liked being alone. Solitary was a blessing for her, and she often did stupid shit just so she could end up in solitary.

She was never getting out of here. She'd been sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for the deaths of the agents her only friend had been responsible for. Her only friend who she still wanted dead.

She got her wish. Why was she so upset about it now?

Simple. She also might have a not so tiny crush on the tiny red-haired ball of energy named Kim Possible. Not as simple, she also was the only other person being considered to train as the next director, and she, in her stupid selfish need to be the top dog (or bitch, since she was a female), wanted her out of the way.

Only to find out that the girl had always wanted to be friends with her and made it a habit to make respectable people out of social outcasts. Apparently, she was Kim Possible's next project, and it pissed her off that it was working. She didn't want to be respectable, she wanted to be respected. Kim had given her that, and she'd thrown it in the teen's face.

She'd also strapped her to a machine where her brain was constantly being fucked up with a ray that caused extreme pain.

She cringed as she remembered the teen gritting her teeth and whimpering, refusing to give anyone the satisfaction of hearing her scream or hearing her cry. Drakken had cranked up the stupid device, and her back had arched briefly, and she thrashed her head from side to side. But she didn't scream, and she didn't cry. When Drakken was gone, she'd turned the thing off for an hour or two, and the girl had sagged in relief.

She'd had Dr. D do it to her once, experimentally. After ten seconds of the most excruciating pain she'd ever felt in her entire life, she screamed at him until he turned it off. The smirk on his face told her he planned to use it again.

He'd explained to Kim exactly how the device worked, and she glared at him the entire time he gloated about his work of scientific art. She'd seen her face drain of color when Dr. Drakken was about to turn it on, and she'd seen her bit into her lip so hard she drew blood immediately.

Kim sat behind her the entire trial. Smiled in encouragement at the beginning of each session. Squeezed her shoulder before the guards would drag her off to jail again. And then, about a month and a half after sentencing, she'd shown up in the visitation area with a small smile and a piece of fucking chocolate chip cake.

After all the God-awful prison food, she wasn't going to be a bitch and refuse the cake. Only because the flame-haired girl's selflessness was about as limitless as her own selfishness.

She ate up every minute with Kim, listening to her stories and helping her with some case or other that she was stuck on... even being a snitch for her some days and secretly tipping her off when shady stuff was going on in the prison or in the world of villainy. Kim always hugged her with genuine affection, and she always returned her affection with a one-finger salute. Kim just laughed it off, like she did every other insult Sherri could think of. The girl was tough as nails.

"What are you staring at bitch?" She growled at a woman who was constantly starting trouble in the prison.

The woman sneered at her unconvincingly and went back to the rock she crawled out from under. Sherri squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her fingers to her temples.

_I shouldn't be able to do even that after what I did to her,_ she mused to herself sullenly. _I should be dead... not her._

_Oh God... she's dead._ She put her face in her hands as the grief tore through her.

* * *

He'd laid her down, flat on her back, against the wall of their hole. How he wasn't entirely sure, but he didn't really care. Her breathing had slowed, and he laid there with her, eyes closed, listening to it fade until he fell asleep.

_I love you_ was his last conscious thought.


	6. Epilogue

"Hey dad?"

"Yeah, baby?" He smiled down at his daughter, now fifteen years old.

"Dad... are you okay?"

"I'm fine I think." He lifted a shoulder, but his daughter wasn't convinced.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Who's the girl in the picture on the wall at Grandma Annie's house?"

He swallowed hard, looking into the glass he had in his left hand and swirling its contents absently.

"Dad?" His daughter's green eyes were just like _hers_. They always had been. Especially when they had that 'I know that something is going on, now explain' look.

When she was born, his wife Katie had watched him carefully. She knew him well, and she knew he'd seen a ghost of his past in his daughter's eyes the first time he looked into them. "Her name is Kimberly Anne," was all she'd said, and Katie simply smiled and nodded.

"-what is going on dad?"

He snapped back into the present and watched his little girl carefully. Then he put his drink down and pulled her into his lap. She squirmed, muttering about how she was too old for this, but he simply squeezed her closer.

"You look just like her," he finally said quietly.

"Like who, dad?"

"My sister, Kimmie. My sister. We named you after her."

"You have another sister? Does mom know?"

He nodded. "Of course. She moved into town two days after Kim's funeral, that's how I met her."

"Does uncle Tim miss her too?"

"Uncle Tim has... different ways of handling things." Tim was never the same after the funeral... he started acting up, got expelled from MAGIC, and eventually moved in with one of many deadbeat girlfriends he would have. The first one started him drinking, and he'd been doing that since. Mom and Dad had eventually gotten divorced, unable to handle the strain of their now destroyed family. It was a stressful few years, and Jim was glad when he escaped to college. His parents had an interesting friendship, but he knew they still loved each other. Neither had remarried, and he often found out that they'd spent the night or maybe more than one night together.

"What about auntie Hana?"

"Hana never met Kim. She was still a baby when her brother died." After finding out that no funeral would be held for Ron Stoppable, Wade, Jim, and Tim did some hacking and investigating, and found out that that home was indeed very dangerous for baby Hana. With some convincing, James and Anne took the baby in as a foster child and adopted her shortly before they parted. The Stoppables went to prison.

Jim and Tim were both very protective of their new baby sister, and even though Tim had gone slightly rogue, he still cared for her in a way that he'd never cared for anyone in his life. She grew up happy, but she grew tired of the divorced parents situation and moved in with him until he got married. She and Katie got along fantastically.

"Wait. He died? That's how she got adopted?"

"In part, yes."

"Well if he died, then where is your sister?"

"She died too, honey," he whispered after a long time. "She died too, thirty-three years ago today."

* * *

**and that was all, she wrote.**

**thanks guys. keep an eye out for my other, full length fic, 'I Lost a World the Other Day'**

**~temporary insanity**


	7. a couple of brief announcements

**Hey guys... didn't think you'd see this in your inbox did you?**

**That you are is only an epic thanks to you for your support in this story and the others that I've posted. So again, thank you. **

**I'm posting this short note for a simple reason: I need your votes!**

**It's voting time in the Fannie Awards and this story is nominated for the following:**

**_best alternate universe_**

**you can find the info on how to vote at triple W dot fanfiction dot net slash topic/329/86054354/1/2012-Fannie-Voting-step-1. **

**Thanks to the ppl who nominated this story, and thanks to everyone that makes it over there to vote for their favorites.**

**another brief announcement: there is an alternate ending to this story, probably coming out later this year. if you preferred a happy ending to this, keep an eye on my profile, i've got a bunch of projects to work on and a long summer to work on em!**

**Best of luck!**

**-temporary insanity**


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